Through A Broken Mirror
by Avaritia
Summary: AU. KK. She’d passed him off as a figment of her imagination, never imagined that she’d see that soul again and yet there was no mistaking it. She knew him immediately.


**Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin is not mine…**

**AN: **This has been sitting in the corner of my computer for a while with the beginnings of a few WIPs that I just haven't got around to posting. I will finish them all at some point, though finding time to write anything but essays during term time is becoming increasingly difficult. Anyway, please tell me what you think!

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**Chapter One**

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With a strangled gasp Kaoru sat up in bed, blood pounding in her ears as the memory faded.

It was him.

It had been years. She had been sixteen when she realised he had gone from her sight. She'd passed him off as a figment of her imagination, never imagined that she'd see that soul again and yet there was no mistaking it. His eyes had been blue this time, though they had long ago settled in her memory as amber, yet she was certain. She knew him immediately.

Battousai.

Fumbling for the switch she turned on the light, resting back against the headboard in an attempt to clear her head.

All her life she'd had these dreams. Sometimes she'd live an entire lifetime in her sleep, waking up exhausted, other times she'd catch only snapshot glimpses from many different lives. Somehow, even at six years old she understood that these weren't just dreams, they were so much more. They were glimpses of history, of real lives, of real _people_.

Her grandmother had been proud, quick to tell the little girl she had a gift. "I saw what you see," she'd told her. She called it their Sight, that what they saw were the pathways of different souls, past lives projected into her mind's eye. She tried to teach the child the meaning of what she saw, her philosophies of reincarnation baffling and delighting Kaoru. While her mother was at work her grandmother would talk to her about her dreams, help her understand those fleeting feelings of recognition when she met someone new, help her understand that the souls she saw at night resided within people she met in the day. Under her grandmother's instruction Kaoru found herself tying her dreams back to real living people, the things she saw helping her understand the way they acted around her.

She'd dream of an old woman standing on the beach, wrapped in black watching warships gather off the coast. Then perhaps the next day she'd see a little girl walking to school holding her mother's hand and _know_ it was the same person. She'd be so sure, though the old woman had been witnessing the navy in World War Two and would be long dead; the little girl was her soul reborn.

Mostly they'd tell her stories of people she'd seen, or was going to see, like the little girl. Fragments of their past lives flashing before her mind's eye. She'd see them as children in the gutter of a dusty street, see them sitting in a Victorian classroom, see them piloting a spitfire amidst gunfire over the sea, see them curled up in an armchair with a newspaper and their spouse, see them die in battle, in a car crash, a riding accident or in bed. She could see the same person die a hundred times in a hundred different places, the same soul at the ending of a hundred different lives.

Her Sight was not something she shared with anyone beyond her grandmother and mum, a secret she kept from the world with pride, but when her mother died she was taken to live with her estranged father. She hadn't seen her grandmother since.

Her dad didn't understand her dreams. He heard her nightmares soon enough (she'd never been a quiet sleeper) but passed them off as trauma from her mother's death. He did all he could to help, so confused by the little girl's assertions that the dreams were meant for her. He thought she was suffering and sent her to a psychiatrist.

She'd never had a dream and not seen the person in close succession. Even if it was just passing in the street, or on television, or even reading a name in a newspaper, she'd see and know the origin of the stories she'd witnessed.

But there was one person she was yet to meet. The person she dreamed of most frequently.

She'd seen him live a thousand different lives, seen him grow up, age and die in a thousand different bodies. She used to think of him as her greatest nightmare and guardian angel all in one. She'd seen death through his eyes and by his hands and in his face as warrior, assassin, policeman, gangster, spy, pirate. He'd kill for different reasons and in different ways every time, but she'd always associate him with death.

It had been years since she'd last seen him. She didn't even remember the last dream, just the morning she realised they'd stopped coming. She'd been sixteen, brushing her hair, vaguely remembering dreaming of a little girl chasing a dog through long grass but nothing else when she knocked over a pile of books in the corner. Her eyes fell on a journal from when she was still seeing the psychiatrist. She hadn't kept a dream diary in years and she felt drawn to pick it up, leafing though the pages until she stopped at the sight of a very rough sketch made in the same blue ink pen that scribed the entire book. A man dressed in strange clothing carrying a sword, he had a wicked scar across one cheek and next to it in her own messy scrawl she could just about decipher 'Battousai?'

Smiling almost wistfully she flicked through a few pages, seeing an entire week of dreams focussing on that one man. As she kept flicking they became fewer, punctuated with more and more stories of more and more people until he only featured once every ten or so pages. She reached the end of the book and closed it. Staring at the back cover she realised that she hadn't Seen him for months now, perhaps not at all that year. She could barely remember the last time she'd woken with him fresh in her mind and at first that thought worried her, but slowly she came to interpret that as her growing up. She allowed herself to entertain the thought that he wasn't a real person, that the figment of her childhood imagination had left her in favour of real stories of real people. He was the only one she'd never recognised later and perhaps that meant he wasn't a true soul.

She'd almost forgotten him in the rush to finish school and get on with University. She still dreamt in snapshots and stories of souls whose paths she crossed, but the hold it had on her daily life lessened and lessened as she graduated and entered teacher training. Her childhood tendency to clutch at the fragments and use them to understand new acquaintances had left her in favour of more typical methods, such as socialising and conversation. After it started the process was mostly natural until her dreams became little more to her than dreams.

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Frantically Kaoru snatched up her coat and bolted for the door, skidding to a halt and doubling back before she managed to get it unlocked.

"Phone, phone, phone… Argh, where is it?"

Throwing a cushion off her sofa she located the missing object and dashed back to the door, slamming it shut behind her and making for the stairs. She'd barely left the entrance of her building before the phone in her hand started buzzing.

"Misao? Yes, I know, I'm sorry… I'm coming right now, I won't be long!"

With that she set off down the street at a rushed jog, dodging the other pedestrians and mentally going over everything she had failed to do that afternoon.

When she'd returned from work she was still distracted, even after the lecture she'd received in relation to unsupervised students, science labs and why the two should never _ever_ be mixed. After trying (and failing) to get some marking done she had got changed and attempted to do some kata to calm herself; succeeding only in getting sweaty, tired and hungry. She'd broken two plates and spectacularly cremated her dinner by the time she remembered she was supposed to have met Misao for an evening's shopping in town.

She was half way when it occurred to her that if she'd picked up either her bus pass or her car keys on her way out she'd be there already.

Rounding the corner onto the main high street she scanned the crowded pavements, picking out Misao where she stood on a bench, the added foot making her almost tall enough to be seen properly, waving frantically with a cup of coffee in one hand. Slowing her jog she walked up to the other girl.

"Where were you?" she demanded.

Kaoru looked sheepish, "I lost track of time."

Misao hopped down from her bench with a laugh, "Well, come on then, we don't have all night and you've wasted enough valuable shopping time already!"

She put it down to her Sight that she was innately good at judging character. She did not remember all the dreams she had, perhaps recalling only one every night, but when she met a person she'd get the same gut feeling you'd associate with deja vus, subconsciously evaluating them somehow from glimpses of actions in a past life. She found she rarely made mistakes, even if she never remembered the Sight that caused her to be especially repulsed or drawn to a person.

Misao was one of those people.

She'd been eleven when the other girl bounded up to her, asking if she'd be her partner in gym. Kaoru had taken a moment to blink away the feeling of knowing her already before smiling brightly and agreeing. They'd been friends ever since.

For years she wasn't aware of having a single dream about Misao, though logically she knew she must have with the number of new quirks that she recognised without reason. Like the fact that she liked fighting. When Misao suggested they start a martial art Kaoru had been floored at how obvious an idea it was, not for herself but for Misao. Of course Misao should learn to fight. And then she'd paused, blinking in confusion at the strange stray thought.

She followed Misao through the throng of people, all pushing and jostling to get to their own destinations. Her eyes wandered across their faces, recognition of her Sight flickering over a few of them as her friend tugged her closer to the edge of the pavement where the crowd was thinner. The mad rush wasn't confined only to the pedestrians, the road was roaring with cars travelling home for the day. _Oh the joys of rush hour…_ she thought as Misao led them precariously along the kerb. Eyes still in the crowd she heard her friend start talking again, relaying her grand plans for their shop.

And then she saw him.

A slight figure, head down, moving quickly against the main flow of people. His red hair was dragged into a loose ponytail and he must have felt her gaze on him because he looked up, scanning the surrounding faces before clashing eyes with her.

She felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.

"-We'll need to start with shoes for you, but then I want to try on this _gorgeous_ dress I saw in the window of that boutique in-"

Her eyes were wide as she held his gaze. Violet. His eyes were brilliant violet. He smiled at her and she was smiling back before she even thought it.

And then suddenly someone was shoving past her in the opposite direction, breaking her gaze and causing her to stumble back. She quickly flung out a foot to catch herself but she was on the edge of the kerb and as her foot met nothing but air she found herself stumbling back into the road.

She barely registered Misao's alarmed shout before the car crashed into her, hurling her over the windscreen and into the air.

Her vision blacked.

There was a rush of sound, the scream of brakes, burning rubber and then shouting.

She hit the ground.

The icy crack of bone on tarmac reverberated through her skull, jarring her vision with black spots and a great white flash of pain. Misao was with her in an instant, along with the man with those purple eyes. He pulled out his phone to have it snatched away by Misao whose eyes were huge as she spoke slowly and reassuringly to Kaoru. 'Ambulance' she thought she heard.

She tried to lift her head but the movement ground something, shaking her entire body with blinding pain as her vision whited for a second, leaving her sick and dizzy as she blinked it back. The back of her head seared in agony and she knew she must be bleeding. The man was kneeling beside her now, face closer, she could see his lips moving as he spoke but could hear nothing beyond the roaring in her ears. He seemed so familiar and immediately her Sight told her to welcome him.

Misao was back, talking to the worried man in panic. He was holding Kaoru's hand now, looking her in the eye and trying to tell her something. She blinked spots out of her vision and stared through the pain at imploring violet eyes.

'Stay with us.'

She barely heard it, garbled sounds rolling through her mind before registering with any sense. Her head hurt so much. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt a siren grinding her into the ground, the sound so deafening she thought it would crush her.

When she opened her eyes there were people, the man was standing, paramedics talking, running. One placed a mask over her face and told her she was going to be moved. She blinked at the face as it withdrew and was aware of hands gripping her shoulders. She thought she heard herself scream.

She blacked out.

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**AN**: New project number three. If you've read it, please review it!


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